GM: Chargers needed a change

A.J. Smith was convinced the sky was about to fall around him. So the NFL's John Wayne did the macho thing. He turned down the role of Chicken Little and signed on to play Foxy Loxy.

The moral of this story: If those playing or coaching for the Chargers believe they're safe, they don't have to look to the heavens, only to the balcony above the practice field, where their general manager isn't playing Juliet to their Romeo.

A.J. Smith is ticked, as upset as I've seen him in his six years as football boss. The Chargers GM just saw his friend and defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell kicked out the door, and his own boot was involved. A 3-5 start will do that. Friendships be damned.

The NFL is hard, man.

Which means making hard decisions. The firing of Cottrell might only be a warning signal and not the end of it. As Michael Corleone told Carlo Rizzi, somebody had to answer for Sonny. Right now that somebody is Cottrell.

But it could go deeper into the mob.

What Smith sensed was disaster, and after weeks of watching poor play and underachieving by defenders, he met with coach Norv Turner, club President Dean Spanos and capologist Ed McGuire in a London hotel room after Sunday's loss to New Orleans. The doctors decided a placebo wasn't going to cure the illness.

“I was convinced something was wrong,” Smith says. “It wasn't just that we weren't playing well. The team, in my opinion, was going south – fast – in their belief of the system and strategy. I thought this team was at the breaking point of being lost. I felt we were on the brink of collapse in attitude and desire.

“Coach Turner and I had been concerned for weeks, and the two of us were on the same page all the way through. I was convinced it was slipping away, and after Buffalo and New Orleans, I could see it and feel it.”

I've been in this business longer than a month, but I can't recall a high-ranking member of a professional organization tell me, on the record, that he feared some of his players might be about to cash it in.

“You can print what you want,” Smith said. “It's the truth. It's how I feel. It's how I felt. I believe our spirit was broken by the defense and was carrying over to other parts of the team. I could feel the last bit of air and fire coming out of our football team.”

You wonder if this would have happened if his club was 5-3, but Smith won't deal in hypotheticals. The Chargers may be 3-5 and guilty in parts of underachieving, but the AFC West is not lost. They still have five of their eight remaining games at home, and their division stinks.

So, now that Ron Rivera, an experienced hand with Super Bowls on his resume as a coach and player, has taken over Cottrell's command, excuses are over. It's up to the players now. They're on the clock.